Ode X

What pearl art thou that none possesseth the price of thee?
What does the world possess that is not thy gift?
Is there a worse punishment than his who lives away from thy face?
Punish not thy servant tho’ he is unworthy of thee.
He that is fallen amid the surge of accidents
Escapes not by swimming, since he is no friend of thine.
The world has no permanence, and if it have,
Deem it perishable, because it is unfamiliar with thy permanence.
How happy the king that is mated by thy rook!
How fair company hath he who lacks not thine!
I desire continually to fling heart and soul at thy feet;
Dust on the head of the soul which is not the dust of thy feet!
Blessed to all birds is desire of thee;
How unblest the bird that desires thee not!
I will not shun thy blow, for very crude
Is the heart ne’er burned in the fire of thy affliction.
To thy praise and praisers there is no end;
What atom but is reeling with thy praise?
Like that one of whom Nizami tells in verse,
Tyrannise not, for I cannot endure thy tyranny.
O Shamsi Tabriz, beauty and glory of the horizons,
What king but is a beggar of thee with heart and soul?